Cherry Bomb
Glendyn Ivin
I have been working on the 2nd draft of my script Cherry Bomb, a film I was working on before Last Ride was sent to me. Cherry Bomb is about a bunch of teenagers who rob a bank in Brisbane, Australia, in 1978. It's based on a true story.
I first heard the story on talk back radio 5 years. The headline news story at the time was about some prisoners who had recently escaped from a Perth jail and the radio host was asking callers if they had ever been 'on the run'. A caller named 'Pat' rang up and told his story about what it was like to be on the run from the police when he was 16 after robbing a bank. I was so taken by the story, I was driving at the time and I had to pull over and just sit and listen to his story. Over the next week or so, I tracked Pat down and flew to meet him in Brisbane. My producer for this project Jane Liscombe and I optioned his story soon after.
The photo above is of 'Pat' aged 15, (That's Alice Cooper make-up he's wearing!) one year before he and his 15 year old girlfriend and two other friends robbed a bank and (almost) got away with over $40 000. The photo below is from the same time. I find these images, and a bunch more I photographed from Pats childhood photo album amazing. If I can get a sniff of the atmosphere and the energy of these random polaroids in the script, I think I'll be on the right track.